Perhaps not as unlikely as you might think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery I remember years a

Perhaps not as unlikely as you might think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery I remember years ago reading about how some researchers were investigating a specific variation of this phenomenon, in which a number of independent and geographically dispersed labs would be, for example, trying to grow a particular crystal. For a number of years none were successful. Then within a matter of weeks of each other, all of the labs would independently discover the same technique that made it possible. This happened so close together that pure coincidence was incredibly unlikely. Apparently this same phenomenon was occurring far more often than it should in theory (based on the probability of pure coincidences), which is what prompted the research into it. Unfortunately, I don't know what the final outcome was. It would be amazing if anyone else remembers this and can point out the original source. Personally I am inclined to believe that it is simply a matter of prior events causing multiple individuals to be thinking about the same things. If you have lots of people searching in the same locality, there's a much higher chance that they will all find the same things around the same time than if they are all operating in a truly random search space.